Project Description
HKADC Drama Devolved Grant Scheme
As responding to local amateur theater performances fewer opportunities, Theatre Space organized the Translated Play Festival, to provide performance opportunities for local drama group, on the other hand, hope through the chance of playing translated drama, with a series of translation workshop, director lecture, dramaturg, to enhance the development of every drama group.
After the selection, eight selected local drama group have a series of production support and artistic opinion, and have 3 public performance in 2005.
Date: 2004/08/26
Time: 7:30pm
Venue: Theatre Space
MC: Dominic Cheung
Lecturer: Jacob Yu
Topic: “Finding”
Date: 2004/09/11
Time: 7:30pm
Venue: HK City Hall High Block Auditorium
MC: Dominic Cheung
Lecturer: Szeto Wai Kin
Topic: “How to begin?”
B.）How to write the proposal
Date: 2004/09/25
Time: 7:30pm
Venue: HK City Hall High Block Auditorium
C.） Translation skill of foreign language play
Date: 2004/11/21 & 28
Time: 7:30pm
Venue: HK City Hall High Block Auditorium (All applicate groups must attend)
Date: 2005/01-02 (10 Sessions) (for groups which into election)
Venue: HK City Hall High Block Auditorium or Theatre Space Rehearsal Room
D.） Director choice and selection
Date: 2005/02
Troupe 1: TheaGround “Make Like a Dog”
Troupe 2: 105 Drama Society “The Frog Prince”
Date: 05-07/05/2005
Time: 7:45pm
Troupe 3: Novice “The Art of Self-defense”
Troupe 4: Freeatre “The Room”
Date: 12-14/05/2005
Time: 7:45pm
Troupe 5: One/Eight “Dossier: Ronald Akkerman”
Troupe 6: LB Theatre “The Actor’s Nightmare”
Date: 19-21/05/2005
Time: 7:45pm
Troupe 7: Chocolate Theater “Dear Diary”
Troupe 8: Home Theatre Home “To”
Date: 26-28/05/2005
Time: 7:45pm
To relieve the tedium of their childless suburban existence, Elvira suggests that Stanley should have a hobby—but what he wants is a dog, and this Elvira will not allow in their spotless, dust-free house. But, to humor him, she agrees to make-believe that she is a dog—and he its master—barking and rolling over as directed. Then Stanley takes his turn, and the game begins to be more farcical and yet, at the same time, rather menacing and even cruel. Behind their antic behavior there are hints of resentments and frustrations, and the threat of ugliness and disorder should the game get out of hand. So it is abandoned, somewhat sheepishly, and Stanley and Elvira retreat to their former, more normal behavior, where boredom leads only to talk, rather than the disquieting risks that action can bring.
Playwright: Jerome Kass
Translator/Director: Amy Tam
Cast: Christopher Cheng, Amy Tam
2) 105 Drama Society “The Frog”
Adaptation of Grimm Brothers by David Mamet.The author turns his considerable talents to the age old children’s story of the prince who is turned into a frog and must find a pure and honest woman to kiss him of her own free will. The old tale is given a decidedly contemporary sensibility that appeals to adults as well as to children.
Playwright：David Mamet
Translator/Director: Patrick Choy
Deputy Director: Tam Kit Hung
Cast: Tam Tsz Yee, Or Wai To, June Lam, Kwok Wai Ho
3) Novice “The Art of self-defense”
The play unfolds in a series of scenes in and around a health club. Five women, from a variety of widely differing backgrounds, meet in a T’ai Chi class. The male instructor is unseen, a voice from the wings. He introduces them to T’ai Chi, which is a mixture of meditation and self-defense. Over a period of time the women, among them a young mother, a personnel director and a corporate lawyer, discover the strength that friendship among women can provide. But even this knowledge can prevent one of them, a meek but modestly ambitious office worker who is encouraged and supported by her fellows, from a failure of courage at the crucial moment. The play ends dramatically, with a recognition that each woman is responsible for the quality of her own life.
Playwright: Trish Johnson
Translator/Director: Ann Tang
Cast: Ying Wai, Ng Shop Yee, Wu Kam Kei, Tse Tin Yan, Lee Kwan Fong, Lai Chiu Wah
4) Freeatre “The Room”
The play opens with Rose having a “one-person dialog” with her husband Bert, who remains silent throughout the whole scene, while serving him a breakfast fry-up, although the scene appears to occur around evening. Rose talks mostly about the cold weather and keeps comparing the cosy, warm room to the dark, damp basement and to the cold weather outside. She creates a sense of uneasiness by the way she talks and acts, always moving from one place to another in the room, even while sitting, she sits in a rocking chair and rocks. Her speech is filled with many quick subject changes and asks her husband questions, yet answers them herself.
With a few knocks and a permission to enter, Mr. Kidd, the old landlord, enters. He asks Bert many questions regarding if and when he is leaving the room. The questions are answered by Rose while Bert still remains silent. The dialog between Rose and Mr. Kidd consists of many subjects that change very frequently, at times each one of them talks about something different and it seems they are avoiding subjects and aren’t listening to each other, creating an irrational dialog. At the end of the scene Bert, who appears to be a truck driver, leaves to drive off in his “van”.
Afterward, Rose’s attempt to take out the garbage is interrupted by a young couple, Mr. and Mrs. Sands. She invites the couple in and they tell her they are looking for a flat, and for her landlord, Mr. Kidd, who, in the first production and recent revivals, was played by its original director, Henry Woolf.
A blind black man, named Riley, who has purportedly been waiting in the basement according to the Sands and Mr. Kidd, becoming a source of concern for Rose, suddenly arrives upstairs to her room, to deliver a mysterious message to Rose from her “father”. The play ends violently when Bert, returns, finds Rose stroking Riley’s face, delivers a long sexually-suggestive monologue about his experience driving his van while referring to it as if it was a woman, and then beats Riley until he appears lifeless, possibly murdering him, after which Rose cries “Can’t see. I can’t see. I can’t see”.
Playwright: Harold Pinter
Translator: Leung Mei Shan
Director: Tsui Wai Lun
Cast: Ding Mei Sum, Cheung Wai Han, Chan Chi Yong, Lo Man Yau, Law Shuk Yee, Law Lap Tak
5)One/Eight “Bossier: Ronald Akkerman”
A Nurse Judith take care of terminally ill Ronald, can she accept his death?
Playwright：Suzanne van Lohuizen
Translator/Director: Wong Tsui Yee
Cast: Pansy Wong, Liu Yin Chi
6) LB Theatre “The Actor’s Nightmare”
A man finds himself inexplicably backstage one day. When he is confronted by the stage manager, Meg, it becomes apparent that he is the understudy for an actor named Edwin (Edwin Booth) and as “Eddie” apparently broke both his legs, the man must perform in his stead. The man is referred to as “George” throughout the play, despite him feeling that it is not his real name (another actress refers to him as Stanley at one point as well) and cannot remember attending any rehearsals or being an actor at all (he instead believes that he is an accountant). To make matters worse, he is unable to get a straight answer as to what the play is. An actress named Sarah tells him that it is a Noël Coward play (Private Lives) and the other actress Ellen tells him that it is a Samuel Beckett play called Checkmate (which seems to have elements of the plays Endgame, Happy Days, and Waiting for Godot). Literally forced on stage, George attempts to improvise his lines; however, the play inconsistently shifts between scenes from Private Lives, Hamlet, Checkmate, and A Man for All Seasons. When forced to improvise a soliloquy in the Hamlet scene, George tells the audience that he was raised in a Catholic school and was interested in joining a monastery but they told him to wait until he was older. When he was older, however, he lost faith (as he put it “I don’t know many Catholic adults”). In the final part of the play (A Man for all Seasons), George is alarmed to learn that he is to play the part of Sir Thomas More – and the execution seems a bit too real for his liking. While attempting to convince himself that he is merely in a dream, George ends up theorizing that one can’t dream of his own death and therefore he will wake up just before he is beheaded. He accepts the execution, but appears to really be dead during curtain call, much to the cast’s confusion.
Playwright：Christopher Durang
Translator/Director: Dymo Leung
Cast: Wong Ka Wai, Angus Chan, Chan Ka Yin, KK, Lee Ming Hang
7) Chocolate Theater “Dear Diary”
Joanna, a writer, has moved from her busy life in London to a romote cottage, hoping that that a more peaceful environmant will allow her to meet the urgent deadline for completing her current book. But her hopes of solitude are shattered when she discovers that she has a close neighbour, who seems only too anxious to help.
Slowly, the two very different women learn about the complexities of understanding each other during their brief, but often fraught, association. Even when Joanna, in desperation, decides to return to London, a further surprise lies in store for her!
Playwright: Kay McManus
Translator: Wong Sin Tung
Director: Wan Wai Ching
Cast: Emily Man, Cheng Pui Ka
8) Home Theatre Home “To”
To is set in a pub somewhere in the North of England, owned by a savagely bickering married couple bound together by the necessity of keeping the business afloat. During the course of the evening, a number of regular customers arrive and depart, events which trigger a fragile movement towards reconciliation between the couple.
Playwright: Jim Cartwright
Translator/Director: Mike Chow
Cast: Wong Sik, Judy Kwok